


What Makes an Impostor Tick?

by saybyebus



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Crewmates are not human, Impostors are aliens, Le Gasp!, Medical Examination, Medical Torture, Please Read Author Notes, Please know what you're getting into, Rating May Change, Scientific Inaccuracies, Sympathetic Impostor, Torture, Unethical Experimentation, but so are crewmates, like by the end of this you will hate crewmates, noncon elements, why are you looking for science in a story about paranoid space beans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:27:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28331613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saybyebus/pseuds/saybyebus
Summary: The crewmates found out who the impostor is. They're not going to throw Blue out the airlock, though. But by the end of it, Blue wishes they had.
Relationships: reader's choice i guess
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bean people, not humans, for both crewmates and imposters. They have stubby limbs and their “space suits” are their skin and fur. The “suit” color corresponds to their fur or skin color. What looks like an air tank or backpack on their backs is a pouch they carry babies in, like a marsupial. Impostors evolved to be so similar to crewmates as a way of adapting and competing. They're like space cuckoos.  
> The noncon elements come in a later chapter, and an archive warning will be added when they do.

Beron floated like a pretty green and purple marble in space, a lush planet of rainforests and bayous. MIRA's Project Handshake had eyes for it, hoping to make contact with the planet's dominant species. The decision had been controversial, to say the least, with half of MIRA's higher-ups deriding such a project as “stupid.” Way too dangerous, they said. Thousands of square kilometers of unexplored terrain! Giant flesh-eating, poison-shooting Meefi worms! No way of knowing if the native flora was toxic to crewmates! And the dominant species there was the Snardgaard, a creature that resembled a green platypus with giant elk antlers, and it could just as easily make friends with newly encountered species as it could rip them to pieces for no reason at all. How could we possibly undertake such a risky venture, they asked, while we were still dealing with Impostors sneaking their way onto MIRA ships. Nevertheless, the funding was allocated and the space explorers hired, and the next thing one knew, fleets of spaceships headed course for Beron. For better or for worse.

Black _wished_ this trip could be that exciting. He'd wrapped up training just in time for MIRA to safely establish settlements on Beron without him. The Snardgaards decided to be friendly this time and sent some of their own scientists to aid MIRA in their research. With initial contact made, a lot of the risk (and the fun) had minimized. No, Black and company's extra super-special mission on the Skeld? To deliver some interplanetary mail and freeze-dried food supplies. Seriously.

The job sucked, and that was before the impostor showed up.

The official alert from MIRA reached them when they were already well into the commute to Beron. While not a terribly common experience, impostor attacks were common enough to warrant MIRA giving them their own danger category. Everyone knew the danger the space cuckoos posed, not only for the missions, but for the lives of the crewmates, too. Despite being almost the same species, impostors were fierce and predacious. And sometimes they made a meal of their mostly peaceful crewmate cousins.

The captain of Black's crew hovered around in Administration, as he'd spent the previous week convinced on a “special feeling” (his words) someone in the crew wasn't who they claimed to be. The other crewmates talked their hot-headed, white-furred leader out of making them vote on a suspected impostor. Not enough evidence, they said.

“WARNING – THERE IS 1 IMPOSTOR AMONG US,” the emergency bulletin on the Admin monitors read, flashing a graphic of a lineup of the crew. Question marks floated over each crewmate's head. White squinted at the screens, as if he could deduce who seemed sus from that graphic alone. He couldn't, of course. Save for the various colors of everyone's fur, each drawing was identical.

“Who here has been on a ship with an impostor before?” he asked the other crewmates in the room. He'd demanded they meet up with him in Administration so he could show them the official bulletin, so now the whole crew of eight beans, him included, were squashed into the little room. Black found himself stuck between a swivel chair and a partition, hemmed in by Orange. She was a nice crewmate – she'd been the first to welcome him onto the crew and she taught him how to trick the vending machine into giving him free snacks – but she always smelled like fruit candy.

Green raised a paw. “Me. I have.”

No-one else responded to White's question. Black muttered something about being fresh from training, and Yellow just shifted nervously. White glanced at her, squinting ever so slightly – was that a sign of her being sus? The others might call it paranoid, but in an Impostor situation, paranoia was the way of reason in his opinion.

“Once before,” Green piped up, distracting White. “In fact, there were two of those fuckers on our ship. They killed one of our guys, but we caught 'em in the act on the cameras. The other one vented right into a room full of us crewmates, like an idiot. Tossed 'em both into space. It was fun watching them thrash around as they drifted off into nothing. It's what they deserve.”

Black, Yellow, and Blue sat there, quiet as stones, once Green concluded his morbid little story. White nodded.

“All right, so we have some experience on the team,” he said, breaking the awkward silence. “Good. Unless you're an impostor and you're making all that up, ha-ha.”

A sour glare from Green made him hastily add, “Kidding! Kidding! Um, we won't vote anyone off without evidence. Promise. Captain's honors.”

“But what are we going to do about the impostor?” Yellow asked. “Should we call off the mission until we find out who they are?”

“No!” Captain said, a little more forcefully than necessary. “I'm the captain, and I say we continue. We're not going to let the impostors psych us out. We'll find out who the baddie is and throw them out while going to Beron. The Skeld has autopilot. All I have to do is set the course and it will go automatically.”

Yellow started to say something, but he interrupted her again. “In the meantime, do your tasks. That's one of the ways you find out an impostor. They're too dumb to do tasks. They can fake 'em or break 'em, but they don't know how to actually do anything.”

Captain held up his tablet so everyone could see. “Your task list is on your tablet already. MIRA isn't going to fund replacements, so don't lose yours. Now, fan out!”

Black had to leave the Admin room even if he had wanted to stay. The flood of exiting crewmates all but shoved him out. Orange actually ended up knocking him to the floor, but she helped him back on his feet and apologized profusely. Black pleaded to let him come with, her fruity smell notwithstanding. Now that they had an impostor situation on their hands, being alone could easily lead to being _dead_. Orange obliged, and they took care of business in the Storage room. She needed to fix some snapped wires; he had to refill a container of fuel.

“Have you ever been on a ship with an impostor before?” Black asked, trying to fill the air. He struggled to get the cap back on the fuel container.

“Uh-uh,” Orange replied, “but I did get to study them a little. The training cell I worked with had a captured live impostor. They can shoot their tongue out freaky fast. By the time a crewmate knows what's going on, the poor fella's already a bean kebab. Hope we can catch the bad guy before that happens to anyone on _our_ ship.”

Black nodded tensely. Crewmates also had a long and pointed tongue, but they couldn't launch it out of their mouths like an impostor could. If they tried, it just flopped out. Their species had evolved it for piercing fruit skins and honeybug hives. Somewhere along the phylogenic tree, though, impostors had made it into a weapon.

“There, that should do it.” Orange stepped away from the wire panel, admiring her work. Black consulted his tablet for his next task.

“Wait, I had a task in Admin?” he said. “Man, we were just in there. I could have done it then, and not wasted time.”

“It's okay. I don't think anyone went back in there,” Orange said. “You could run there real quick and do it. I'll go on ahead to Electrical, got a couple things there I need to do.”

“Hm. Okay,” Black agreed halfheartedly. The pads on the bottom of his feet pattered on the steel floor as he hurried back to Admin, tripping on the door threshold in the process. His task there was the dreaded card swipe, so he took out his wallet and prepared for repeated frustration.

_Too slow. Try again._

_Too fast. Try again._

_Bad read. Try again._

Black violently swiped the card through the reader again and again, growling. Across the room, a bunch of bumping and ripping sounds echoed through the vent. He froze, card task all forgotten. His heart dropped, and he tore out of Admin. The sounds he'd just heard weren't the normal white noise of air passing through the ducts. No, those were the noises of something weird and probably bad going on...in Electrical.

“No no no no no!” he stuttered, rushing through Storage. “I shouldn't have let her go to Elec alone!”

He skidded to a stop in front of the entryway to Electrical, precisely too late.

What remained of Orange lay by the vent. She'd been slaughtered in the middle of repairing more wires, which hung out of the machinery and sparked feebly. Blood and viscera festered on the floor. Orange had a deep gash running across her throat, and her front had been slashed open. The sliced flesh was jagged, torn to shreds. It looked as though something, or rather, _someone,_ had gone to town on her with beastly teeth and brute strength. It wasn't hard to put two and two together and figure out who that someone was. Because there was Blue, standing over the grisly scene with a robust smattering of blood on their front.

Black stared, wide-eyed, before getting ahold of himself and immediately alerting the others with his emergency pager. He tapped in 310, the code for a dead body, while Blue shook their head in a panic. But it was too late, the alarm had been sent out and there was no retracting it now.

Blue's protests didn't matter. In a blur of activity, everyone was summoned to the caf, around the table with the big red EMERGENCY button. Yellow hobbled into the room, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Red twiddled their fingers, full of nervous energy. White faced the wide-eyed, shaky Black from across the table. Blue sat next to him, shivering and sweating slightly.

“Where?” Green demanded as soon as everyone was present.

“I...It was in Electrical,” Black stuttered (he always stuttered when he was nervous.) “I was in Admin doing my card swipe, when I heard weird noises coming from Electrical. I ran in, and I saw Orange all dead and ripped up, and there was Blue! Standing right over her, with blood on them.”

That shocking revelation seemed to zap the sleep out of Yellow, who asked, “Oh my God! Is that true?”

“I wouldn't lie about something like this,” Black said. “And as much as I hate saying it...I think it was Blue.”

A heavy pause fell over the meeting. Black rested his face in his paws.

“She was all ripped up to pieces,” he muttered, sounding close to tears. “Felt like I was gonna throw up...”

White tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “Do we have any other evidence? Blue, do you have an alibi?”

“Blue doesn't talk, remember?” Pink told him.

“Can they, or do they just choose not to?” White asked, but that was directed more towards Blue themselves. “Because if you really can talk, now's probably a good time to pipe up.”

Blue sagged in their seat and shook their head, making a pathetic but nonverbal sound. They lifted their paws helplessly.

“That sounds pretty damn sus to me,” Green said. “Looks like we have an impostor on our hands. Time to toss Blue out the airlock—“

Black, who had been shifting uncomfortably his seat during this whole exchange, spoke up: “Waitwaitwait. Maybe, maybe this is all a misunderstanding. Maybe it wasn't what it looked like. Maybe Blue walked in and found the body, like I did—“

“When did you last see Orange before she went into Electrical?” White questioned.

“She and I met up in Storage after the meeting in Admin,” Black explained, “and we were going to do tasks together until I remembered I had the card swipe. She went ahead into Electrical while I stayed behind, but...then...I...” He trailed off as he realized his explanation was only further incriminating Blue.

“Sus!” Green declared. “Toss 'em out before they kill anyone else.”

“We could check the cameras to be sure,” Black mumbled. “Do we really need to kill Blue, though?”

White sighed. “I try to handle things with an innocent until proven guilty mentality. But, well, everything points to Blue being an impostor, and a murderous one at that. We've got a dead crewmate and we can't just let that slide. I'm the captain of this vessel, and I got to maintain order here. Blue, we're voting you off.”

Out of White's sight, Green smirked. He folded his paws smugly.

Blue jumped out of their seat, making a distressed vocalization. In that moment, their mouth opened enough for the crewmates to see their long, sharp teeth. Not to mention the coiled-up, pointed tongue. With this sudden movement, Green also sprang into action, knocking his chair over.

“Hold them!” White commanded. Green lunged for Blue and grabbed hold of them, as did Pink, who was sitting the closest to them. Blue squirmed in their grip. They gritted their teeth, their sharp fangs, in a panicked grimace. A fleck of bloody saliva jumped from their mouth and splattered on the table. White also rose to his feet, taking an authoritative stance.

“On second thought...” White fixed an icy stare at Blue. “Let's not pass up an opportunity. I want to find out what makes these things tick. We _are_ a science crew, after all.”

Green perked up, interested. Red looked confused, and Black looked ill again.

“You don't mean...?” Yellow tapped her fingers together nervously. “What are you going to do with them?”

“Red, to the med bay,” White commanded. “Set up some lights and a table. Green, Pink, toss the imposter in the airlock for the time being. Black, thank you for being such a good help.”

“No, wait, I—please don't,” Black protested. “Just throw them out the airlock, don't do this to them.”

“First you didn't want us to kill them, and now you do? Make up your mind, man.” White turned his back on Black. “I'm going to Communications. MIRA needs to know about this.”

He, Green, and Pink departed from the table, dragging Blue away with them. And leaving the others to gawk at each other in shock. Yellow twiddled her thumbs, a nervous habit of hers. After several awkward moments, she was the one to try breaking the silence.

“I, uh, is this anyone else's first mission?”

Red shook his head. “But it is the first one with an impostor on board. How did this happen?”

“I always figured this was the kind of thing that happened to other teams. I know they went over this in training, but I never expected it to actually happen...What do you think White is going to do with Blue?”

Black continued to sit there, stunned into a stupor. He hadn't spoken a word since he tried to reason with White. He didn't even hear the awkward conversation in front of him. In his own mind, he was floating a hundred miles away in the void of space. Like what they did to accused impostors.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, the species name is just latin for "space bean." Fight me.

Many million years ago on a planet called Inna, a small population of the species _Faba spatium_ became separated from the others by a seismic disruption. Stranded in a region without proper food for their species – the plants were inedible to them and there were no honeybug hives, nor were there the usual troves of insects and eggs – these specimens adapted into carnivores. They evolved longer claws for grasping and killing, sharp teeth for slicing meat, and keen low-light vision to stalk prey by night. By the time the population of proto-Impostors reconverged with that of the future Crewmates, they were perfectly honed predators.

At least, that's what the palentologists and historians said. Black kind of wanted to take that story with a grain of salt, because he really hated to think that a freak earthquake in butt-whatever MYA was the ultimate reason Orange was in a body bag and Blue was in the airlock.

He freed himself from the cocoon of blankets in his Medbay bunk. In the middle of the room, near the scanner, stood the table White asked for yesterday. The Skeld came equipped with an exam table for emergency treatment in space. In another case of a stupid small thing having dire consequences later on, MIRA specifications had ordered that the Medbay exam tables have mechanical straps. In case of a lack of anesthetic and an unruly patient, that was their justification for it. No prizes for guessing how White and company would repurpose the piece of equipment.

Black woke up in Medbay alone. The others must have left already to fetch Blue from the airlock. He shuddered at the idea of having to sleep there. He and the others had passed through it when they first boarded the Skeld; he remembered how the metal paneling creaked from the pressure changes and the alarm screamed if someone so much as sneezed on the doors. And that was just the five-minute boarding passage. At White's command, Blue spent the past ten hours imprisoned in there. Hell, they might have even left Orange's body bag in there, too, waiting for a burial in space.

White had used his captain powers to suspend all tasks until Blue was “secured.” Black had no busy work to distract him. Gingerly, half-driven by a morbid curiosity, he exited Medbay and padded off in the direction of Storage. The empty hallways held a strange tension. A tension even heavier, more oppressive, than the one that had reigned supreme while an impostor roamed freely about the ship.

_This isn't right._

\---

“It's go time, lads,” White said, standing at the Airlock with Green, Red, and Yellow. The night before, Green had stocked up on zip ties and tasers. He held the electric device in his free hand. His paw twitched eagerly around the handle. Yellow hung back, equally frightened of both White and Blue.

White cleared his throat. “Good morning, Blue.”

Blue didn't hear him through the heavy sealed doors, of course. But they did see the four crewmates through the airlock window. They immediately struck a defensive pose, hissing and spitting like a cornered cat. They were scared, and ready to fight if it meant a chance of survival.

Out of her peripheral vision, Yellow saw Green's thumb hover over the switch on his taser.

Throwing a glance toward the crewmates, Blue extended their tongue threateningly. That tongue would be an obstacle. It was lightning fast, and the crewmates needed a way of stopping Blue from using it as a weapon, if they wanted to stand a chance of subduing Blue. At the meeting it had been easy enough – the impostor was scared and stressed, too distracted by the arguing to think of fighting. But now they were rested and angry.

“I have a plan, but it's risky,” White explained. “We're going to trick Blue into opening their yap so we can hold their tongue and not get skewered. You don't wanna be in front of them. It takes an impostor all of a millisecond to shoot out their tongue. The key is to have Blue's back to us. My idea is, we will initiate the airlock opening, but not actually do it. Blue will think we're ejecting them, they'll get distracted, and then we move in and jump them. Green, since you have experience with impostors, I'll need your help.”

“Yes, sir,” Green replied. “Absolutely.”

“Watch for the claws,” White warned him.

“I know.” Green had a scratch wound under his eyes. Blue had fought back while he attempted to throw them in the airlock. He had retaliated by swiping at Blue with his own claws, which were much duller. They didn't so much as dent Blue's fur. Crewmate claws were never that sharp to begin with, and several thousand years of disuse had adapted them into mostly useless nubs.

White quickly relayed the plan in more detail to Green, in a low voice; no-one else could quite hear it. He told Red to help him lug Blue to Medbay. Then he instructed Yellow to hold Blue's paws and whatever other body parts needed to be held, so as to prevent escape attempts.

“Oh, but...” she protested.

“Who's the captain here?” he retorted.

“Sorry, sir.”

“Airlock opening fakeout in 3...2...1...” White said, fingers hovering over the switch. The others tensed up in anticipation.

White flipped the switch. An alarm whined, and the airlock door creaked as if it were about to open. Blue whirled around to face it, eyes wide and stance broken. They glanced back and forth frantically.

“Now!” In a pair of deft movements, White threw the switch back into position, halting the airlock opening, and pressed the button to open the doors on his side. He and the others rushed into the airlock. Green's taser crackled to life in one paw, and he flicked a fresh zip tie in the other.

White dashed forward and tackled Blue to the ground. They cried out and tried to turn themselves over to fight back, but the captain held firm. Green dove in and spiked Blue with the taser on low. The light dose of electricity shocked them both metaphorically and literally. While their mouth was open in surprise, he looped one end of the zip tie around their tongue, then hooked the other end around a fang. He pulled it tight, effectively pinning the impostor's tongue in place. It wouldn't hold indefinitely, but it was one way to tame a wild tongue. Blue snapped their jaws together, accidentally biting their own tongue in the process.

“Ha! Serves you right,” Green taunted.

Blue's claws slid out, cutting his celebration short.

“Yellow! Now!” he demanded.

Yellow's legs wouldn't move at first. Blue's claws came down and Green slapped their hand away.

“I'm not getting scratched again, you little shit!” he snarled.

Yellow jumped to action, diving in. Blue saw her coming and acted faster than she did, and she couldn't quite dodge the claws coming at her. She yelped as they cut across her cheek. Resisting the urge to hold the injury, she seized Blue's paws instead and attempted to pull them away from Green.

It wasn't like holding hands with a lover, of course; Yellow gripped the paws as hard as she could and, for a terrible moment, made eye contact with Blue. The impostor's eyes were coal-black like a crewmate's, but they had slitted pupils and an unexplainable fire within. She inadvertently distracted Blue, letting Green sneak up with another zip tie and knot Blue's paws together with it.

“Got 'em,” Green said.

“Can't they break out of those?”

“Nah, not this kind of tie. It's tough as nails.”

“But they'll find a way out if we wait around,” White interrupted. “Now – help me move them to Medbay.”

Green came over and hoisted up the hissing impostor by the head, while White carried them by the legs. Blue thrashed violently in their grip, making their walk unsteady.

“Back us up, Red. Yellow,” White instructed, whatever that was supposed to mean.

The north doors of the room opened just then, and Black stepped into the room. He surveyed the scene, wide-eyed.

“Ah, Black. Fashionably late,” White commented. “Mind giving us a hand?”

Black hesitated, there being nothing in the galaxy he wanted to do less than that, but he stammered out an “Okay.”

“You had to think about it?” Green questioned. “You're awful chummy with this impostor.”

“What d'you mean?” Red asked him. “You saying Black's the other impostor?”

Black backed up against the wall.

“He shouldn't be,” Yellow cut in. “It's just the one impostor, and we have them already. Black's new, remember? He's probably just nervous being around an impostor. Or he's still shaken up from Orange being killed.”

“R-Right,” Black stuttered. He followed the others to Medbay. For some reason, White took an inefficient route past Electrical and through the engine block to get to Medbay, which made the procession all the more uncomfortable. Worse still, nobody had cleaned up the blood and yuck from yesterday's butchering in Electrical. Black looked away from it as they passed by.

Finally, the mechanical doors to Medbay slid open. Green and White hauled a hissing, screeching Blue into the sterile room. The impostor's writhing and thrashing had abated somewhat; Blue had worn themselves out. Black stared speechless at the display.

“Ready? Hoist!” White commanded, and he and Green forced Blue up onto the table. Blue kicked at them, making them dodge away, but they kept a firm grip on Blue's hands, holding them down. Green pushed their head down onto the table for good measure.

“Red. Get your ass over here and hold the legs,” he snapped.

“Line the ankles up into those divits,” White told the rattled crewmate as he approached. “Otherwise the straps will go through their leg and break something. They engage like (snap!) that. And that would hurt, wouldn't it, you blue bastard?”

Red arranged Blue's legs into the grooves on the table, in time for White to press the button and activate the straps. Metal bands shot out and encased Blue's paws, ankles, and neck. The impostor yelped in alarm. They instinctively tried to escape their new confines, writhing and squirming like a hooked worm, but of course, the bands held fast.

“Ha,” White breathed out in relief. “Glad that's over with. Green, did you get scratched at all?”

“Just on the face, from yesterday.” He held a paw to the slightly scabbed injury.

“We should probably dab some antiseptic on it, just in case. Who knows what kind of exotic space germs Blue has on their claws.”

“Woulda been nice to do that yesterday while it was still fresh,” Green grumped. “It stings.”

Black, rather foolishly, spoke up. “Okay, so you've got Blue secured. Now what do you do?”

“We do science, that's what,” White boasted. “MIRA will appreciate it. They've captured one or two live impostors, but nobody's been able to get this up close and personal with 'em.”

Yellow hung back, wringing her paws. She edged in closer to Black who, in turn, sidestepped away from her.

“But first. Yellow!” White called to her.

“Uh, yes, sir?” she squeaked.

“That scratch on your face. Blue got you, didn't they?”

She touched the shallow wound. “Yeah.”

“Like I said, antiseptic for it. Don't want whatever's been festering on Blue's claws to get into your system.”

“Ugh! That's disgusting,” she complained as White opened a drawer and got out the tube of stuff, plus a sticky bandage. While he patched up Yellow, Green and Red stood over the captured impostor.

“We should do something about that tongue,” Green suggested. “Something more permanent. That zip tie won't do forever.”

“You're right.” White paused to think. “I'll look through the cabinets. Red, why don't you give me a hand.”

The two of them picked through drawers and cabinets in Medbay's supply console. Eventually, White found a strange metal clamp. Black couldn't even guess what its intended use was. The clamp pinned Blue's tongue to their teeth, holding it down and keeping it safely locked away. It also had the side effect of keeping Blue from swallowing properly, so saliva leaked from the impostor's mouth every so often.

“Look, if you really want info on Blue, we don't have to make things so...invasive,” Black dared to speak up. “Just do a scan.” He gestured towards the circular platform and mounted computer. That idea got shot down faster than an asteroid floating too close for comfort.

“The Medbay scanner doesn't work on impostors,” White said. “It gets a whiff of their DNA and absolutely loses it. Watch this.”

He grabbed a fingerful of Blue's fur and pulled it out, making the impostor yelp. Then he sprinkled the hair onto the scanner. Immediately, the machine sputtered, squealed, and displayed “ERROR” on its screen in big red text. White folded his paws.

“Besides, to do a scan, we would have to release Blue from the exam table and make them stand still on the scanner. Good luck with that. Nah, we're doing it the old-fashioned way.”

“What do we do first?”

“Let's get a blood sample and type it. Let's hope our friend Blue isn't afraid of needles.” White rummaged around in the cabinets until he found a clean, empty syringe.

“I'll do it,” Green volunteered. White handed him the syringe. The green crewmate approached Blue. With his back turned to the others, only the impostor could see his eager grin. Blue shivered. Green stabbed the needle under their skin near their shoulder. They winced at the stinging sensation while Green pulled back the plunger. A ruby red liquid filled the tube.

“I always figured their blood would be black,” White commented. “Like in the movies.”

Black viewed the scene, appalled. Green had no idea how to properly take blood or even insert a syringe in general. Green held the blood sample up to the light, getting a reading on how much he'd taken, then gave it to White.

“Four mini-measures,” he told White, a crewmate-invented measurement that equaled about five milliliters. White had pulled out a rack of test tubes, and he emptied the syringe into a fresh tube. While White did that, Green stole another nasty look at Blue.

Yellow offered to help White do the blood typing. Black watched with cautious intrigue as they added clear solutions from strange vials to tiny puddles of Blue's blood. Yellow said something about how, if the blood touched an incompatible antigen solution, the plasma would separate from the cellular material and ruin the sample. Red and Green quickly grew bored of the testing. They whispered to each other, occasionally glancing at Black.

“What are you guys talking about?” Black asked them, when the somewhat childish behavior got to be too much. Really, they were acting like middle school girls.

“Nothing, nothing,” Green mumbled. “Mind your own business, Black.”

Before he could say anything in response, Yellow and White reached a verdict. “They're O negative. The universal donor.”

“If someone needs a transfusion, we know where to find it,” Green commented. “Finally, an impostor that's actually good for something.”

“To be fair though,” Yellow added, “we aren't sure if impostor blood can be safely transfused into a crewmate. Nobody's ever done it before. I mean, we are pretty much the same species, but you never know...”

“I'm not volunteering for that,” Red mumbled.

Yellow got out her tablet and started taking notes on her findings.

“As for our friend's height and weight, I think the same dimensions as us is a safe guess,” White said after a brief pause. “And it's pretty obvious they're blue. No need to scan for that.”

“So you got their blood type, now what?” Black inquired. Once again, he shouldn't have asked that. He was hoping it meant the crew was done treating Blue as a lab rat, but of course, that wouldn't happen.

White yawned. “I think we call it a day. Tomorrow we'll do more. Maybe run an x-ray to see what Blue's bones look like. But for now, I'm bored, and Yellow needs to upload her notes from today. Don't you, Yellow?”

“Yeah.” She was clicking through screens on her tablet's file explorer.

“It should be a lot easier now,” he said. “Since you don't have to worry about an impostor shanking you from behind. I've heard that's one of their favorite attacks.”

“What are you going to do with Blue, then?” Black glanced at the impostor, who had given up trying to escape a while ago. Blue just lay there, breathing heavily.

“Eh. We'll just leave them there overnight.”

Black's eyes widened. “You're going to leave them strapped to a table all night?”

“Moving them back to the airlock is too much of a hassle. You saw how much they fought with us. Nope, Medbay is their new home now.”

“Yeah, I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have a loose impostor again,” Green sneered. “We're lucky they couldn't break out of the airlock last night. Those things are stronger than they look.”

“Enough's enough, Black,” White said, his tone harsh. “You need to stop feeling sorry for the impostor. Blue is a killer, remember? You of all people should know that. What would Orange think of you defending her murderer like this?”

Black fell quiet. His mouth quivered.

“Go do your tasks. And stay out of Medbay. If I catch you sneaking in here, I...I don't know what I'll do, but you won't like it. I might toss you out the airlock. I don't wanna do that.”

He pushed Black out the door, with the other crew following him. White's fingers hovered over the light switches for Medbay.

“Good night, Blue,” he said tonelessly. “We have more work to do tomorrow.”

The lights blinked off and the doors clanked shut. Alone in the dark, Blue breathed out a sigh of defeat.


	3. Chapter 3

Long before either crewmates or impostors were a civilized species, the latter got their name because of an unpleasant habit of theirs. Like some kind of cuckoo, they left their babies in crewmate nests, tricking crewmates into raising their young for them. In extreme cases, a very hungry impostor baby would attack and eat its “siblings.” Their behavior of infiltrating and wreaking chaos continued to this day, although now it had evolved into sabotaging missions and attacking civilized settlements. Even now, the crewmates had no answer for why their violent cousins did it. And the one imprisoned in the Skeld wasn't going to talk anytime soon.

Black sat in Comms, a heavy-duty pair of headphones over his ears and a thick pad of paper laying on the table near him. He twisted the dials on the panel, trying to tune the static into discernable speech. The radio was quiet today. He picked up a signal from the space station over a nearby planet, a small ball of ice floating in the stars. He couldn't make out a word of it. Whoever was on the other end wasn't speaking in Standard Galactic but their own dialect, and Black only spoke Standard. He fiddled with the dial some more until he got another signal, this one from a spacecraft leaving Beron. He messaged them, asking if they were affiliated with MIRA.

“Negative,” came the response. “You are speaking to a U-FATE craft. State business.”

“Um, MIRA craft, course set to Beron for supply delivery.” He hoped the people on the other end mistook his stuttering for connection issues. Mentally, he cursed out White for forcing him to do Comms tasks, when he knew full well Black hated them. White knew it made him nervous. He suspected this was White's way of punishing him for acting up yesterday.

The response from the U-FATE craft was succint. “Understood. Pass us peacefully. Do not impede us.”

At least Black didn't get insulted or cussed at, like the last time the Skeld had a run-in with a craft from the rival organization. The United Federation of Astrophysics, Telecommunications, and Exploration hated MIRA's guts after a scandal involving patent infringements and accusations of stolen blueprints. They also had outposts on Beron, and they didn't like sharing the planet with MIRA.

“Don't mess it up for us on this planet, too,” the person on the other end added, before the radio cut to static.

“You're not really a federation, you know! You're a corporation!” Black spat back uselessly. He scoffed and shut off the radio. He took notes on the encounters, including the rude comments. He fell into the rhythm of writing and tuned out the background noise from the room. When the doors to Comms swished open loudly, he nearly dropped his notepad in surprise.

Swiveling the chair, he saw White leaning in the doorway.

“Would you like to join us in Medbay?” the captain asked.

“No,” Black said, a little more curtly than necessary.

“Why are you acting like this?” White stepped inside the room. His body blocked the door. “You know Blue is an impostor. A monster. They killed Orange – you _saw_ that! So why do you feel sorry for them?”

Black didn't have an answer.

“If you won't report to Medbay, do the rest of your tasks. But I wouldn't do anything that needs two people if I were you.”

“...Why?”

“Because you're on your own. The rest of us are _busy._ ”

“Doing what?” Black asked, stepping out of the chair – even though he already knew the answer. “What are you going to do to Blue today? What more information could you possibly need from them?”

“Um, way more than you think, newbie,” White retorted. “We don't know their heart rate, haven't gotten an X-ray, and we still have no idea what their insides look like. Blue could be a sack full of bio-slime for all we know! And don't you remember the MIRA motto?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Black grumbled. As if MIRA ever let anyone forget what the motto was. They stamped “Science is the Future's Foundation” on every company-issued item it would fit on. It was even engraved on the toilets. Black thought it was kind of a stupid motto – nobody was burning the candle at both ends when they came up with that one, for sure.

“It's for a good cause, Black. HQ needs this data. It will help them prevent imposter attacks in the future. Know your enemy and all that. Don't you want to keep your fellow crewmates safe?”

“Yeah, but I don't know if this is really the best way of doing it.”

White took a defensive pose. “Why's that?”

“I mean, we barely know what we're doing. Out of all of us, Yellow's the only one with real medical experience. The rest of us are part of a science crew—“

“Of which I'm the captain, and you're the newbie.” White poked him in the chest. “I'm trying to lead this mission as best as I can.Look, I know you don't like what we're doing. I know you're a touch soft – I remember you showing me pictures of your dog before takeoff. But you gotta remember, impostors are dangerous. You might feel sorry for Blue, but they don't feel anything about you.”

Black tried to say something, but White continued his diatribe.

“Do you know what will happen if you try releasing Blue? They'll kill you as soon as they get the chance. Doesn't matter if you were nice to them. I mean, they didn't exactly hold back for Orange, and she didn't do a thing to them. They aren't like us, Black – they don't feel kindness, and they definitely don't feel love.”

Black didn't know what to say at that point. Much like their colors being opposites, neither of the two could hope to convince the other. White tipped his cap and left for Medbay. As soon as he left, Black remembered that he should have told him about the call from the passing U-FATE craft. Realizing that he forgot left him banging his head on his desk.

“Idiot!”

[(|)]

Tailed by the usual crew of Red, Yellow, and Green, White opened the doors to Medbay. He'd been bluffing when he said everyone was there to help – the last he heard of Pink, they were still fast asleep in the barracks. As the doors slid open, the lights in the room activated with an electric fizzling sound.

Across the room, Blue groaned at the sudden flood of light. They writhed on the exam table, their body aching from being forced into one position for hours on end. As soon as he was in the room, Green had to assume his usual asshole self.

“Morning, you blue bastard. Did you sleep well?” he taunted. “Nice cozy bed you got there.”

Yellow sighed. “Green, be professional.”

“You sound like Black,” he retorted, and then to White he said, “What's on the agenda for today?”

White was setting up an electronic apparatus. He rolled a cart over to the exam table, upon which a small monitor had been set. Blue whined and squirmed while White slid a fabric cuff over one of their paws. A few wires connected it to the monitor. Black recognized its purpose even before White turned on the device and rhythmic, soft beeping noises filled the room.

“I can't believe we forgot to get a reading on their heart rate yesterday,” he said. “Then again, they were pretty rattled. What with the fighting, and the freaking out over getting a little blood sample...That would have messed up the readings. Never mind.”

“85 beats per minute,” Yellow reported, glancing at the screen. “Although it might be elevated because of stress. I'm going to take several readings so I can draw up an average.”

“Sounds good to me,” White answered.

“The normal rate for one of us is 75 bpm,” she went on. “If Blue's readings come back consistently higher than that, we could make a hypothesis that an impostor's heart rate is higher than a crewmate's. Nothing conclusive, but it would be something.”

Yellow's voice had no tone. There was a faraway look in her eyes.

“Thank you,” White told her. “Let's do an X-ray now. I've heard rumors that impostors have different skeletons from us. I want to see if that's true.”

“How will we do that if the scanner malfunctions when exposed to impostor DNA?” asked Yellow. “I mean, ordinarily such a procedure would be incredibly simple. But under circumstances like these...”

White, who had only been half-listened as he rummaged through the cabinets, stood up with a strange handheld device. It resembled a ray gun, but with plastic discs attached to its muzzle.

“What's that thing?” Red inquired.

Yellow answered for White. “An X-ray apparatus...the kind dentists use—Why do we even have one of those?”

“Beats me,” White said with a shrug, “but I'm not complaining. Time for your photo op, Blue.”

[(|)]

Black sat on his bunk in the barracks. He had a copy of the MIRA handbook spread across his lap. Above him, Pink snuffled in their sleep and occasionally muttered indistinctly. Technically, Black had a task to empty out the garbage in the sleeping quarters, but the chute was even more obnoxious than the one in the cafeteria or O2. And Pink, for as much of a pushover as they could be, was downright mean when woken up. So instead, Black opted to do a little research.

MIRA had titled the section on impostors “Knowing Your Enemy.” A bold choice, considering that the company knew very little about the inner workings of impostors, even now. Over and over, the manual said that the impostors' motives were unknown, and the “scientific” illustration had clearly been done by a distant observer, not someone who'd gotten close enough to sketch the details. White was dishonest about a lot of things, but he had told the truth when he said that this crew had a unique chance to study an impostor up close. _Very_ up close.

[(|)]

“Hmm,” White murmured as he prodded at Blue's visor with a metal probe. The transparent, almost rubbery skin gave slightly at the pressure, but then sprung back to its original shape. “Looks like they've got the eye membrane we do. I've heard we have it to protect our eyes from excessive light. How well, do you think, someone can fare without it?”

Blue squirmed in the restraints, whining softly. Over the course of the day, along with their cardigram, they'd been photographed, X-rayed, injected with something that made them nauseous, and given all of five minutes to actually sit up and have some water. White had watched them like a hawk while Yellow undid the straps on their waist and propped them up. The clamp on their tongue wasn't removed, either, so they damn near choked as Yellow poured the water directly down their throat. Green found that hilarious. And as soon as they were done, it was back down on the table, in time for White to loom over them with an ominous-looking metal stick.

The captain picked at the edges of Blue's visor-membrane with the prod's pointy end. “Wonder what would happen if it got torn off. It would be painful as all hell, I can imagine. What else, though? You think they'd go blind from the light?”

“I don't think that's a good idea, sir,” Yellow piped up. “We can't irreparably damage our specimen.”

“Hmm. Yeah, you're probably right.” He flicked the edge of the membrane with the probe's tip, almost scratching it. Blue cringed. But at this point, they no longer fought.

“Can we tear it off later?” Green asked. “Imagine how they'd scream.”

“Later?” White paused for a second. “You know, I hadn't even thought of what we would do with Blue once we're done with our research. I suppose we could eject them as per the usual plan with impostors. What do you think, Yellow?”

Yellow gave her opinion. “Actually, I feel it may be more useful to deliver them to MIRA. Yes, they have captured live impostors before, but never one that could be studied up close.”

“And never one quite so submissive,” White added, staring into Blue's eyes.

“They tried to bite me earlier today,” Red protested, wagging the finger that Blue tried to chomp. “What's so submissive about that?”

“Wait until tomorrow. Then you'll see.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ****WARNING!****  
> This is the chapter with the noncon elements! It isn't typical non-con, but it might be triggering to some readers. In short, it's an invasive medical examination scene.  
> To skip the most graphic parts, please stop reading at the line “displaying on the monitor screen as an increasingly stuttered line.” Resume reading at “Yellow tucked her tablet away and left for Admin.”

Legend had it that in the species's prehistoric, pre-civilization days, male impostors sometimes snuck into nesting areas at night so they could mate with female crewmates. The scientists vehemently denied this. Just a myth, they said, no records of such a thing ever happening. They did, however, suggest that the divergence between the species had happened recently enough, evolutionarily speaking, for them to still be genetically compatible. Nobody was willing to test that hypothesis, of course.

Black sat alone in the cafeteria, not really enjoying a breakfast of rations he couldn't be bothered to heat. On board the Skeld, crewmates had a food supply of protein supplement and grain meal that came in little MIRA-branded packages. It looked and tasted like sawdust, but it met all of a crewmate's nutritional needs except for hydration, and it kept almost indefinitely. Heating it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Every now and then, Black was tempted to sneak food, real food, from the supplies they were supposed to deliver to Beron. But fear of the management's wrath was enough to hold him back.

Black set his tablet down in front of him, absently scrolling through a feed of new tasks, unimportant bulletins from MIRA, and reminders to upload the files stored on the device. News from MIRA HQ that morning consisted of a cheerful announcement of expanded presence on Polus, thinly veiled attack ads against U-FATE, and a journalistic report about a new species encountered on Beron. It was a carnivorous plant that trapped small frogs and rodents in its bulbs.

He glanced up as Yellow entered the room. Her gait was sluggish. She carried a small stack of papers, perched precariously atop her tablet.

“Hi,” Black said.

“Mm, hello,” was her sleepy response. “Uh, I just got done developing these. White wants you to check them out.”

She swiped a paper off the top of the stack and slid it across the table to him.

“What is it?” he asked as he picked it up, but as soon as he got a look at it he knew. The ghostly outlines of a _Faba spatium_ 's skeleton were burned onto the glossy black page. Except, instead of normal crewmate teeth, this skeleton had long fangs, some of which were serrated. Black sighed, realizing whose X-ray this was. The image looked artificial somehow, though, as if pieced together from several separate images.

“Blue's bones are almost identical to ours,” he said. “Did you guys really need to blast Blue with X-rays and spend however long putting together this composite?”

“It was White's idea,” Yellow deflected. “Besides, I took safety precautions. I used lead shields.”

“What else was White's idea?” Black set the X-ray back on the table.

Yellow bit her lip.

“Just because he's captain doesn't mean he's always right.” Black paused for a moment, resting his face on his paws. “You know, when the mission first started, he and Blue were close. I really thought they'd hit it off as friends. Especially after that argument with Green.”

“Look, I've talked to Green,” Yellow stammered. “I figured if I did that, maybe he wouldn't be so much of an asshole. Didn't work, he just yelled at me. And White defended him! He said Green had a point about me acting like...you.”

There was an awkward pause as the two made eye contact.

“In his words, not mine. White thinks you're being irrational.”

“Yeah, I know. He told me so myself yesterday, in Comms. You know, I think he believes I don't care about what happened to Orange. That's not true. I saw her body, Yellow, and I reported it. I cried over her. She was a friend.”

Dammit, he was stuttering again. So much for trying to seem collected in front of Yellow.

“Ah, right.”

“What I don't get is how torturing Blue is supposed to bring her back. This doesn't even feel like we're accomplishing anything. Not anything that couldn't be done over at MIRA HQ.”

“Well, it's what White wants, and he's captain, so...” Yellow trailed off, then changed the subject. “Have you seen Pink?”

“Getting their rations. They think that heating the sawdust up will make it taste better.”

“Will it?” Yellow asked hopefully.

“No.”

She sighed. “Well, you know where to find me if you need me. Or if you need Red, or Green, or...yeah. I need to go.”

[(|)]

Morbid curiosity drew Black towards Medbay that afternoon. Boredom drew Pink, as did not wanting to be alone on the Skeld. Even without an impostor at large, the ship seemed more threatening when one wandered the halls alone. Pink had tried watching cameras in Security in attempt to feel useful, but as they told Black, the instinct to constantly check over one's shoulder made it more trouble than it was worth. Every shift in the air currents made the Security vent cover, and Pink's bones, rattle. Even without the threat of an impostor worming through the ventilation system, the dread remained.

The two crewmates entered the antiseptic-smelling room in time to walk in on a scene of Green sticking Blue with yet another needle. He was taking a blood sample again. Blue bucked on the table when the needle pierced their skin, but other than that, they didn't fight.

“Quiet today, huh?” Green asked them while he measured the sample. “No fightning, no biting? I think we did it, White. I think we've finally broken them.”

“They're an impostor, Green. Not some riding animal,” Black interrupted. He could almost hear Green's eyes rolling at the sound of his (sadly squeaky) voice. He handed off the syringe to Yellow and started striding towards the black crewmate, who reflexively stepped back.

“Okay, smart-mouth,” Green said, lifting a paw at him, but then he faltered. “So...how do you plan on getting in the way today? You must have a special sense, Black. You could sense we were about to do something serious with your buddy Blue here. What, did they send you a distress signal? Heh, are we 100% you're not an impostor?”

Black blinked a couple times. “What are you going on about?”

“Oh, just that if we haven't shown Blue who's boss yet, they're going to know pretty soon.”

White snapped his fingers. “Green, disengage the leg straps. And get Black and Pink out of here, they're too soft to handle this.”

Blue inhaled sharply. They started to shiver in their restraints.

Black's eyes widened and he glanced around suspiciously. “What's going on?”

“I want to see what the undercarriage looks like, if you know what I mean.” White adjusted his captain's hat.

They knew what he meant.

“White, don't do this,” Pink told him.

“Yeah, come on. We don't need it,” Black said.

“The reproductive parts are probably the same as ours,” Pink went on. “It's a waste of time to examine them. There are more important tasks you could be doing. And are you sure you really need to see an impostor's junk?”

White frowned. “If you aren't going to help, then go do your tasks. Don't you have business in Electrical?”

Pink frowned. “Yeah, but...”

“Then go do it! You should be glad that place isn't a death trap anymore. We've got the impostor trapped in here, and not in Electrical to jump out of a vent and bite you in half.”

Pink tapped their fingers together. Black frowned and started to walk over to White, only for Green to interpose himself between them.

“You're getting in the way. If you're not gonna help, then get lost.” He shoved Black back. “And take the pink wimp with you. Go help them in Electrical or whatever – make yourself useful for once.”

“Hey,” Black said sharply. “Don't you push me around. Why do you always need to be such a bully?”

Green just glared and pulled a switch. The Medbay doors slammed shut in Black and Pink's faces. Black tried to pry them back open, but they wouldn't budge.

“He locked them!” Black tugged on the door switch uselessly. “What a tool!”

“What do we do now?” Pink asked, then answered their own question. “I...I mean, I guess I could do my tasks. I have a few things in Electrical I need to do.”

They scurried off, leaving Black alone in front of the Medbay doors. He tried the switch one more time. Nothing happened, so he backed away from it in frustration. He let out a defeated sigh and went to work on his tasks. There were asteroids in Weapons that needed destroying. Maybe he could take out his irriation on them.

Meanwhile, in Medbay, an air of intense focus had settled on the crewmates. Blue squirmed and whined in their restraints. Their heart rate picked up tempo, displaying on the monitor screen as an increasingly stuttering line.

“Green, the straps.” White slipped on a pair of nitrile exam gloves. “Come on, we're burning daylight.”

“There's no daylight in space,” Red unhelpfully pointed out, earning him an annoyed glare from the captain.

Green flicked a switch on an instrument panel below the table surface. He shrugged.

As soon as the ankle bands retracted, Blue frantically squeezed their legs together, gasping in panic. Unfazed, White grabbed them by the ankles and forced their legs apart, lifting them slightly to tilt Blue's pelvis up.

“Let's see what we got here. Red! Get me a light.”

Red, no expression on his face, directed the lamp where White wanted. Even under the visor, one could see Blue blushing a hot crimson as the light fell on their crotch. Blue had no external genitals, the closest thing to that being a small, lip-like fold between their legs. But that wasn't any different from what the crewmates had. They also had internal genitals, which only slid out during arousal or waste expulsion. Red shared this fact with White, who just glared.

“I know that, Red! I've had sex before, I'm not stupid. We're trying to figure out how these freaks make more of themselves. Their uglies must be on the inside, too.”

“Very well, sir,” Red squeaked, “but if they are, then they must only come out during sexual excitement, too. How then, will we—“

“In case you're wondering, I'm not going to work up Blue into getting all hot and bothered.” White opened a drawer and removed a metal instrument resembling a duck bill. “We can speed things up a little. We have our ways.”

Yellow felt a chill go over her. “White, are you sure that's really necessary? If we're pretty sure imposters' private parts are like ours, do we really need to—“

White glared at her dispassionately and jammed the speculum between Blue's legs. It broke past the protective folds with little resistance. Blue screamed. They thrashed in pain, their legs kicking wildly. Without any hesitation, Green grabbed one of their legs to hold them still. Yellow looked like she was going to pass out.

Not that White cared. “Red, get over here and hold them steady. Last thing I want is to get kicked in the face by this freak.”

Red slunk over to hold Blue's other leg. White went to work, manipulating the speculum to pry open Blue's slit. Tears streamed from the impostor's eyes, leaking through the ducts in their visor membrane. The cold metal instrument pulled apart the genital folds, revealing a moist, fleshy cave inside. A bit of mucus and blood spurted out.

“Gross,” White remarked. “Now, let's see whether or friend Blue here is male or female. Hand me the probe.” White held out an upturned hand so he could receive the small metal stick.

Yellow set it in his hands. This one was dulled at the end, but it didn't stop the very violated Blue from crying out as it was inserted. The probe jabbed against the walls of their cavity, which secreted more mucus from the unwanted stimulation. White found a limp phallus and a puckered spintcher inside. He smirked.

“Congratulations, it's both. I found a penis and a cervix. We got ourselves an intersex impostor. I wonder if all impostors are like that, or if Blue is just special. Yellow, take a picture. Mira will be interested in this.”

Blue blushed in shame again, crying softly. Yellow eyed the small camera on the countertop. She hesitated.

“Yellow,” White repeated, in an annoyed tone.

She wrung her hands and got out her tablet, opening the camera function. She only looked long enough to angle the camera correctly and take the shot. Blue was an imposter, but seeing them pried open like this made her guts churn. She took pictures where White instructed. As soon as she had the photos, she lowered her device and clasped it like it was a machinery part she had no clue what to do with.

“Take it to Admin,” White told her. “I want the photos downloaded and sent to MIRA HQ as soon as possible.”

White removed the probe and started to pull the speculum out. The instrument slid out with a wet pop. Blue let out a whimper and shuddered all over. White tossed the dirty implements in a plastic tray and shucked off their rubber gloves.

“Today was productive,” he commented.

“I hope we haven't damaged the reproductive parts,” Yellow fretted. “That wasn't really proper use of a speculum.”

“Ah, shut,” Green snapped at her. “Is it really such a tragedy if Blue can't make more of themselves? The fewer impostors out there, the better.”

White shrugged. “He's not wrong.”

Yellow tucked her tablet away and left for Admin. Her face creased with anxiety. Hopefully she wouldn't run into Black in the process. She didn't know how she'd tell him what happened.

[(|)]

Black sat in Admin, watching the digital map of the ship with disinterest. Each icon on the map corresponded to a crewmate, but they all registered as identical gray blips. Most of them clustered in Medbay. One of them disappeared from Medbay and reappeared in the Cafeteria. Black turned his attention to it, in time for it to disappear again. A few seconds later, Yellow swung into Admin.

She avoided looking at Black as she plugged her tablet into the main computer. While the devices exchanged information, she rocked on her feet nervously.

“You probably, uh, don't want to look at what I'm uploading,” she mumbled. “Just so you know.”

Black glanced up from the digital map. So she knew his curiosity would get the better of him and he'd pry. Well then.

“The photos I took, they're kinda, um, explicit,” she went on.

Black had grown sick of his peers' roundabout way of talking around him. “What do you mean?”

She sighed. “Well, you know what White and the others were doing.”

Black winced.

“White told me to take photos. For research purposes. Seriously, it's ugly. There was a speculum, and a probe, and...and Blue screamed and cried. A lot.”

Black looked ill. “Please. Please don't say anything more.”

He'd figure it out himself soon enough.


End file.
